This is the second lesson in a series that are being featured on Thursdays in WFM. If you did not read the first installment you can click on the link below to read the previous lesson before you read this week's lesson.
http://paintgodintoyourday.blogspot.com/2013/06/love-revealedpart-one.html
______________________________________
______________________________________
“Love Revealed”
Lesson 2
"For God so Greatly Loved"
Your God
bestowed, He gave forth of Himself His only begotten Son, pertaining to the
only one of its kind. I cannot imagine
giving up my son or my daughters for this world. But your God did this because He greatly loved
and prized you. He desires an intimate
relationship with you, His beloved.
Why did He
do this? Why did He send His son? So
that whoever believes in, trust in, relies on His Son Jesus shall live and not
die, shall have everlasting life. He came so that you would not be destroyed or
ruined. He came to bring peace between you and the Father. Oh what manner of love is this? It is a personal love for you. Not only that but He did not send Jesus to
judge, condemn or reject you. He sent
Him so that you might be saved from this world.
My beloved there is NO condemnation in Jesus. Only a Father's love for His child, and you
are His child. Thank you my Father.
When I
first said yes to Jesus I did it to get people off of my back. I had no idea what it truly meant to say yes
to the King of kings, to the Son of God.
I played the game of Christianity.
Read my Bible, went to church, tried to be a good little Christian. It really was all about works not about
relationship, not about a personal love for me.
After a while I stopped going to church, I stopped trying to read my
Bible, most of what I read did not make a whole lot of sense to me any
way. What I usually read brought
condemnation on me. And when I tried reading the Old Testament it brought fear
to me, an unhealthy fear, because I could only see a God of wrath in it. I felt
there was no way to win with this God.
Then one day several years later I remember kneeling down in my sister’s
house and asking our precious Jesus into my life. I will say that it was still a process for
me, a long process. I still had the same
ideas about who this God was and wondered did Jesus really love me? For me my life did not change much other than
I knew I was saved and was going to heaven, isn't that what saying yes to Jesus
was really all about anyway getting into heaven, being good, doing all the right
things. Whatever you believe all the
right things are. As far as I could tell that is what it meant. But I am here to tell you it is not just
about getting into heaven and has nothing to do with being good or doing all
the right things.
God gave life
while you were a sinner, if you received life through His favor as a sinner,
then you have received much more life (favor) through His Son as a saint. Glory
to God! All who have said yes to our
Jesus are in right standing, YOU ARE IN
RIGHT STANDING MY BELOVED, YOU ARE
RIGHTEOUS and because of that the favor
of God surrounds you! Hallelujah!!!!
God gave life while you were a sinner, think about this for a
moment. God gave life to YOU while YOU
WERE a sinner. God gave life to me
while I was a sinner. It had nothing to
do with what a good girl I was or wasn't.
It did not matter what I did or did not do. The only do I had to do was say YES to Jesus,
that I believed He was the Son of God that He came to set me free from
myself. There is no performance needed
to be accepted into the kingdom of God.
I truly believe that if I sat down from this point on and did nothing
more I would spend eternity in heaven with the Father. But why would I want to just sit down? Oh beloved just knowing how he loves ME,
knowing what He has done for me makes me want to work for His kingdom. But I tell you this is not work as the world
sees it, it is not drudgery, it is a joy and hard to contain what the Father
has done for us. I had to renew my mind
to the truth that I had the favor of God all over me, that I was His beloved, that I was in
right standing, that I was righteous. It
is not my own righteousness that I wear, but it is my Jesus' righteousness that
I wear. My beloved it is Jesus’ righteousness that You wear.
Glory to God!!!
Written by
Kathryn Hanson
I enjoyed your lesson, Kathryn. When I seriously think and meditate on these concepts I find myself filled anew with awe at the amazing wonder of God's unconditional love for us.
ReplyDeleteGod bless...